242 ' [November, 



Tlie really impovt.int cliamctcrs by which Thomson and Saunders 

 define their '* mandibvlari's " — the sparse abdominal puncturation, silvered 

 (" frosted ") antennae of the 6 , etc. — are not alluded to at all by Dahlbom, 

 and there is no reason to think that his species exhibited them. 



If, on the other liand, we turn to Gerstaecker's description of his 

 srricatus we find that in all really important characters it suits our 

 species perfectly. Thus, he notes (1) that the mucro is slightly longer 

 than that of unigluviis — Thomson remarks the same of " mandihularis " ; 

 (2) that the bases of the 6 antennae have a frost-like clothing of very 

 short silvery hairs— Saunders especially notes this as a character of our 

 species ; (3) that the mandibles are not simply yellow, but yellow at the 

 base, then testaceous, and at last (at the apices) black — this diffei's only 

 from Saunders's and Thomson's descriptions as being more exactly true 

 to the actual facts of the matter than either of them ; (4) he describes 

 the colour of the legs as differing in the two sexes just as Thomson 

 remarks that it differs in inandlbidaris ; (5) his description of the 

 puncturing, etc., of the abdomen in the two sexes of sericatus diffei's 

 only from what Thomson and Saunders say as to mandibularis by going 

 more minutely into details. In one point only his (Berlin) specimens 

 seem to have differed from ours, namely in having, as a rule, more pairs 

 of spots on the abdomen. (With us there are seldom more than two 

 pairs and occasionally one only !) But I have specimens from the Al])s 

 determined by Kohl as " sericatus Gerst." which are spotted exactly like 

 the so-called mandilularis taken by Saunders and myself in our own 

 (Woking) district. 



In Saunders's own collection there are no specimens called '■^ seri- 

 mi?««," and none but British ones called " mondibtclaris." He had a 

 few of what v. Dalla Torre, Kohl, etc., call " mandibularis,''^ but they 

 wei-e sent to him as vmnegatus, and I do not suppose it ever occurred 

 to him to reconsider his — or rather, Thomson's — interpretation of 

 Dahlbom's species, as he would certainly have done, if he had possessed 

 specimens of Continental sericatus and been able to compare them with 

 Gerstaecker's admirable description, which could not but have recalled 

 to him the characters he had attributed to mandibularis. 



After long consideration of the whole matter I have come to a very 

 decided opinion (V) that the true mandibularis of Dahlbom can hardly 

 have been our British mandibularis, but may not improbably have been 

 (as V. Dalla Torre's Catalogue saj's) identical with variegatus as 

 described by Wesmael and later by Gerstaecker; and (2) that our 

 species is certainly Gerstaecker's sericatus, which name it ought to 



